OTTAWA, ONT.—Latest results from the 2012 HAC Canadian Travel Intentions Survey show that 42 percent of business travelers (up 5 percent from 2011) said environmental initiatives such as water recycling and energy efficiency are important to them. Thirty six percent of leisure travelers and 34 percent of business travelers said it is important for hotels to have green products. Twenty-five percent of leisure travelers and 31 percent of business travelers said a hotel with an environmental certification program is important to them.
Nineteen percent of business travelers and fifteen percent of leisure travelers said the ability to purchase carbon credits is very important to them. Forty-three percent of all travelers said they would pay $1 or more to offset their stay at a property (carbon credits).
In other findings, business travel is projected to be up 4 percent in 2012, while leisure travel is expected to be static. Eighty percent of business travelers said they would be doing more or the same amount of business travel in Canada in 2012 as they did in 2011 with the highest percentage coming from Ontario and Quebec. Eighty-two percent of leisure travelers said they will be traveling more or the same for vacation this year.
Leisure Travel Trends
While overall, leisure travel is static, 26 percent of Quebeckers said they would be traveling more for leisure, 3 percent more than the national average. The most uncertainty regarding leisure travel is in Ontario, with 8 percent indicating they did not know what their leisure travel plans will be for 2012. Of those who said they would be traveling less for leisure in 2012, 37 percent said they were doing so because of financial difficulties while the cost of air fare has been identified as another leading reason for traveling less.
Business travelers who said they would be traveling less this year claimed the number one reason for doing so is the use of video conferencing followed by the cost of air fare in Canada.
The survey of Canadian travelers is the eighth annual Canadian Travel Intention study undertaken by the Hotel Association of Canada. This survey was fielded by Opinion Search and defines a traveler as someone who will stay at least one night in a hotel, motel or resort. The online survey was conducted in the last week of January and the first week of February 2012 among 1,518 “likely travelers” with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percent.
Go to the Hotel Association of Canada.
